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Using coffee grounds in your garden can be great way to recycle, saving you money and helping the environment into the bargain. If you want to start on a small scale you can collect your own grounds but as your use expands you should be able to pick up grounds being thrown out by local coffee serving establishments. Talking to the managers of coffee shops should secure you these grounds or you can take part in a scheme such as Starbucks' Grounds for Your Garden'.

One of the main ways to use the grounds in the garden is to utilise the nutrients they contain as a fertiliser. Acid loving plants such as evergreen, azaleas, laurels, rhododendrons, camellias and roses will flourish with grounds sprinkled around them. My own rose bushes thrived once the grounds had been added and this manifested itself in some really beautiful roses. However do be careful that when the grounds are scattered they do not touch the bush itself as this can cause burning.
Another way that I have used grounds to great effect was to mash them up and add them to bald spots on my lawn, within a few days I had healthy, green re-growth. If you have managed to get hold of a large quantity of grounds they can be spread across the whole lawn for an all over rejuvenation, you should see results within three days.
If you wish to use the nutrients from the coffee grounds with less time commitment they make a great addition to your compost bin. A major benefit of this is that they will attract worms into your compost and provide an excellent food source to enable them to thrive. This has the advantage that the worms will aerate your compost, a factor that is crucial for decomposition and they will also help to break down your pile of waste.
As well as attracting useful critters the grounds can also be used as a repellent for those we consider pests. Old grounds can be sprinkled in areas in which you wish to discourage ants, slugs and snails (for instance around a tomato patch). They can also be mixed with orange peel to discourage cats for using your garden as a litter tray.
Once you return indoors from a long day's gardening the grounds come in useful again to wash the gardening muck from your hands. Simply rub a small amount of grounds in your hands as you wash them and this should remove any grease or oils as well as providing great exfoliation. You should be left with soft, clean, slightly fragrant hands.
Coffee grounds are a great product for recycling as they have so many applications in the garden. I would really encourage anyone to start using them for all the reasons listed above but primarily to help the environment through recycling and minimising the use of chemical based fertilisers.

Learn more about this author, Tamfra.
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